IDW CEO Ted Adams: "It's a terrific time to be a comic book publisher"

IDW CEO Ted Adams has declared the current state of the comics industry to be "amazing".

He discussed the slow but steady growth of the market in a series of interviews with ICv2.

When asked about the current state of the comics industry, he said: "My view is that it's amazing.

"It's a terrific time to be a comic book publisher. We've seen dramatic increases in quarter to quarter and year to year sales in all channels of distribution - direct market, book market, specialty market and digital publishing.

"And last year was a good year, so it's not like it's up from a bad year. Last year was a terrific year."

Adams attributes the success to a focus on quality, rather than the speculator market of the '90s which ended with a catastrophic crash.

He also talked about IDW's current and upcoming projects, revealing that sales of its soon-to-conclude series Locke & Key have been increasing year on year.

"It's really built an audience and I think once everybody sees how Joe [Hill] and [Gabriel] Rodriguez finish that storyline that those hardcovers and trade paperbacks are going to be books that people will be reading forever in the same way they read Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, Swamp Thing, that kind of thing," said Adams.

"I think Locke & Key holds its own with all those properties and those will be books we keep in print forever. I'm anxious myself as a fan to see where the story ends, but disappointed as a publisher that we won't have more ongoing comics."